Bayne, 20, was running in NASCAR’s Nationwide Series last summer when he hired Benson as a driver coach, and Benson saw something great in the kid. If you know Benson, even a little bit, you know he’s not the type of guy to blow smoke.

The rest of the stock car racing world saw just how special a driver Bayne is Sunday when he pulled off one of the biggest surprises in NASCAR Sprint Cup history.

Scratch that. Let’s put Bayne’s win No. 1 all time.

I’m guessing old-school fans want to keep Greg Sacks’ win in the Firecracker 400 at Daytona first -- he was driving an unsponsored car. But that was 1985, when you didn’t have the competition there is now. It wasn’t the Daytona 500, either.

The Indianapolis 500 used to be the race every kid dreams of winning. Now, it’s the Daytona 500.

Plus, this was only Bayne’s second career Sprint Cup start, and he is running a part-time schedule for the Wood brothers this year. This isn’t a full-time ride with Hendrick Motorsports. This is Glenn, Edward and Lenny Wood, who hadn’t won the Daytona 500 since 1976 with David Pearson. Heck, they had won only one race the past 17 years, and that was in 2001 with Elliott Sadler.

Critics will be quick to point out that the field had been watered down by the time Bayne took the white flag for the final restart that set up the green-white-checkered finish. Blown engines and accidents resulted in a race-record 16 cautions, eliminating favorites such as Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton, Clint Bowyer, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson.

But, while the favorites were dropping out, Bayne was driving a brilliant race. Let’s be honest. You thought he was a sitting duck on that final restart, too, especially with Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch and Carl Edwards ganging up on him.

AP PhotoTrevor Bayne leads a group of cars around Daytona International Speedway en route to victory.

It was amazing how the kid fought off the bullies when they tried to take his lunch money, doing something the late Dale Earnhardt Sr. needed 20 tries to achieve. Mark Martin and Tony Stewart still are trying. Champions such as Rusty Wallace never did win it.

NASCAR was predicting Sunday’s Daytona 500 would be the best since 1979 -- the last time the 2.5-mile superspeedway was paved. I have to admit that Sunday did feel a little like 1979, if you recall how half the country was snowed in that day. We all stayed in and watched the Allisons duke it out with Cale Yarborough on the backstretch.

But Sunday’s race did not measure up to 1979. I still can’t stand that two-car breakaway draft.

However, it did give us 74 lead changes, and that was a race record. Best of all, with one lap to go, I still had no idea who was going to win the race.

People complain the races are too long. Maybe so. But if you give me close racing, with lots of passing, a number of lead changes and a competitive field, like we had Sunday, I will watch it for six hours.

No, this race didn’t have a dramatic fight, but it did produce an extremely popular winner, and I’m not just talking about Bayne. Is there a race fan in the world who didn’t enjoy how the Wood brothers slayed the likes of Rick Hendrick, Richard Childress, Joe Gibbs and Jack Roush? No one dislikes the Wood brothers.

A star was born, too, in Bayne, who became the youngest winner in Daytona 500 history. Tell me another driver with a brighter future.

Come to think of it, Benson might have found himself a new calling as a driver coach.﻿